Robert L. Kroc, PhD, had a long,
distinguished career in private industry
as an investigator in endocrinology and
therapeutics. He also served as
president of the foundation established
by his brother, Ray A. Kroc, founder of
the McDonald’s Corporation. The Kroc
Chair was created in 1985 with a gift
from the Kroc Foundation to honor
Dr. Kroc, and to support research
focused on rheumatic and connective
tissue diseases and the related study
of immunologic abnormalities. The
first holder of the chair was Edward
Goetzl, MD, who retired in 2011.

The Kroc Chair grew to have the
highest market value of any endowed
chair in the Department of Medicine. In
2014, it was decided that dividing the
income among multiple faculty members
pursuing research in these fields would
magnify the impact of this gift. In
October 2015, five faculty members
were appointed to the Robert L. Kroc
Endowed Chairs in Rheumatic and
Connective Tissue Diseases I-V:

"Endowments bring donors, a vision, and leading physicians,
scientists and educators together to carry out that vision.
This synergy of generosity, purpose, and leadership generates
a force that ripples out in multiple directions for many years."— Talmadge E. King, Jr., MD, dean of the UCSF School of Medicine

Rheumatologist
Francesco
Boin, MD,
directs the UCSF Sclero-
derma Center. Boin received his medical
degree from the University of Padova
Medical School in Italy, completed his
internal medicine residency at the
Mayo Clinic, and a postdoctoral
fellowship in rheumatology at Johns
Hopkins University. He directed the
Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center’s
Translational Research Program before
his recruitment to UCSF. His research
focuses on the genetic basis and
biology of immune cells involved with
mechanisms of autoimmunity in
scleroderma. His goal is to identify
novel tools to investigate the causes
of scleroderma, effectively measure
disease activity, monitor treatments,
and predict clinical outcomes.

"The leading principle I inherited from
my mentors is that patients hold the
answer to their disease, which means
that coupling refined clinical phenotyping
with cutting-edge research is the best
way to solve this illness," said Boin. "The
support from the Kroc Chair will allow us
to establish the UCSF Scleroderma Center of Excellence, which will provide
outstanding clinical care and build the
translational research infrastructure that
will allow us to find a cure."

Pulmonologist
Laura Koth, MD,
established the UCSF Sarcoidosis
Research Program. She earned her
medical degree from Harvard Medical
School, then completed internal
medicine residency at Massachusetts
General Hospital and pulmonary
fellowship at UCSF. Koth initiated a
longitudinal study of sarcoidosis patients
and healthy controls that now includes
200+ patients and is in its fifth year. This
study includes studies in genomics,
biomarker discoveries, and identification
that Th17 largely drives the cells that
produce interferon-gamma. Many of
these discoveries have challenged
traditional thought and are creating new
avenues of investigation.

"I want to thank the Kroc family for
this generous opportunity to be a
physician-scientist," said Koth.
"Sarcoidosis can affect adults of any
gender, age, and race, though it
disproportionately affects African-
Americans. Many patients live with
physical or mental disabilities, usually for
the rest of their lives, and they are very
motivated to participate in our research.
...This award is very meaningful to me,
and provides validation that the research
direction I’m focused on is significant."

Pulmonologist
Anthony Shum, MD,
is a physician-scientist with a particular
interest in understanding how genetically
linked autoimmune diseases contribute
to interstitial lung disease. Shum directs
a translational research lab that
intensively studies patients and their
families, sequencing their genomes to
identify genetic mutations and the
molecular pathways underlying disease,
and modeling their disease in mice. He
earned his medical degree from the
University of Chicago, and completed
internal residency at Boston University
and pulmonary fellowship at UCSF.
Shum hopes to discover diagnostic and
interventional targets that will ultimately
lead to biomarkers and therapies that
directly impact patient care.

"I’m grateful and honored to be
named to this chair," said Shum. "As a
physician-scientist fighting for ever-
shrinking NIH dollars, it’s really
meaningful to have support. Having this
chair will let us continue the work we’ve
been doing at the intersection of
pulmonary disease and autoimmunity,
particularly working closely with families
with rare disorders that affect the lung,
figuring out how to solve these
disorders, and coming up with new
treatments."

Rheumatologist
Jinoos Yazdany,
MD, MPH,
co-directs the UCSF Lupus
Clinic. She received her medical degree
from UCLA, her MPH from Harvard
University, and completed her internal
medicine residency and rheumatology
fellowship at UCSF. Her research focuses on developing tools that increase the quality
and safety of health care delivered to patients with
rheumatic diseases. She has co-chaired the
American College of Rheumatology’s (ACR) Quality
Measures Subcommittee, chaired the ACR’s
Rheumatoid Arthritis Quality Measures Development
Work Group, and currently chairs the Research
Committee for the ACR national registry.

"I’m so grateful for this unexpected honor, and
appreciate the generosity of the Kroc family," said
Ya zdany. "Rheumatic dise ase s are ex tremely
complex, and are difficult to diagnose and manage.
I’m interested in ways we can use information science
and new tools to make health care safer, deliver it in a
more standardized and evidence-based way, and
reduce the striking health disparities we see in these
conditions. I’m especially excited by the opportunities
this endowment will permit – allowing me to pursue
this research agenda more aggressively both at
UCSF and nationally, and to mentor the increasing
number of trainees interested in improving the quality
and safety of health care in rheumatology."

Rheumatologist and molecular immunologist
Julie
Zikherman, MD,
cares for patients at the UCSF
Arthritis Center and runs a basic immunology
laboratory. She earned a medical degree at Cornell
Medical College and completed internal medicine
residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where
she began a rheumatology fellowship that she
completed at UCSF. Antibodies are a crucial part of
our defense against infection. Zikherman’s lab delves
into the origin of autoantibodies, which mistakenly
target the body’s own tissues with often devastating
results. Autoantibodies are characteristic of rheumatic
and connective tissue diseases such as lupus, and
arise from a type of white blood cell called the B cell.
Interestingly, many normal B cells in healthy patients
can recognize the body’s own tissues. Zikherman’s
group is trying to understand what prevents normal B
cells from mounting inappropriate immune responses,
what goes wrong in the context of autoimmune
disease, and which subsets of B cells are at greatest
risk for producing dangerous autoantibodies.

"I’m so very grateful to have been selected for this
honor, and even more grateful to have trained and
stayed at such a generous and welcoming institution,"
said Zikherman. "The support from this chair will be
invaluable for pursuing some of our lab’s questions,
and I’m excited to do that."

"Dr. Robert Kroc, the founder of this chair,
was a visionary," said Talmadge E. King, Jr., MD,
dean of the UCSF School of Medicine. Addressing
the newly inducted honorees, King said, "As an
endocrinologist, he was in this business, and I
think he would not be surprised that we have
such wonderful people to be supported by his gift.
This is an exciting time in medicine, and you are
our future – it’s in really good hands, and I am proud
of you."